I wrote this before and Fluther went down…
While the mass media may not be the most powerful entity on earth, those behind the mass media certainly wield incredible power and have great influence. Much mass media content is generated through interactions with public relations practitioners and content is influenced by media owners who control huge media conglomerates. Furthermore, there are organisations and individuals, who because of their financial power, can influence what is reported through suppression orders and threats of legal action.
In addition, because of the concentration of mass media, the news and information we consume is highly manufactured and controlled. I recently came across a new news site called ‘Newsmap’. All the major headlines for your country are mapped out and the size of the image for each story relates to its popularity. Have a look at this site and look at the various English speaking country’s pages. Look at the similarity in headlines for the Word news. The news we consume is generated by less and less companies.
While I do not believe for a moment Rupert Murdoch stands behind the journalists who work for him and tells them what to write, he still influences the content they produce. If you research and produce stories that do not fit the News Ltd preference, your story will not be published. Eventually you will conform or you will not work there anymore. So Murdoch, who pays the wages of the journalists AND the editors does have power over content.
Recently Murdoch posted this to Twitter. ‘‘Terrible news today. When will politicians find courage to ban automatic weapons? As in Oz after similar tragedy,’’ Mr Murdoch said.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/turnbull-targets-murdoch-over-guns-20121217-2bii3.html#ixzz2FdTUGOBu
A leading Australian politician responded with ”‘‘@rupertmurdoch I suspect they will find the courage when Fox News enthusiastically campaigns for it.’’
The story about this interchange was published in the Fairfax newspaper The Age and not in any News Ltd publications from what I can see. Murdoch does not own Fairfax. (The Age)
So in my opinion if mass media are not the most powerful entity, they are close to it.